Seven

I'm a most fortunate person. Nine and a half years ago I was working part time in a college library - it was a job I loved, but I worried about how I was going to survive because 28 hours at $7 per is not a lot of money for an adult to live on. I was lucky because I was caring for my mother at the time and with her retirement and my wages we were able to live, if not extravagantly, at least we didn't want for anything. But my mother and I are not good roommates and the situation became untenable for me after about five years. Mom's health was declining and I just couldn't care for her any longer.

When she got the opportunity to move into senior housing I got a job at Quad/Graphics in West Allis. It was the best career most I could have made. That was in 1997. In 2000 I got the opportunity to transfer to Saratoga Springs, New York - a beautiful place that I had fallen in love with when I visited for training the year before.

I was nearly 10 years with Quad before it came time for me to leave. The atmosphere had changed with he death of the company's founder, the extravagant and expansive Harry Quadracci. Say what you would he was a man who knew people and he loved and nutured his company like no one else could.

After a short stint at a small printer in Rome, New York (a job that I loved so much I was looking for another after 3 months) my BFF Angel told me to apply where she was now working.

Long story short, that's how I came to work at I-Centrix. It's a company that knows what it's doing. The employees are treated with respect, as adults and the company officers not only know how to work, and expect everyone else to do the same, but they also know how to have a good time. We're serious about our work, but we know how to relax - and it comes right from the top.

One additional bonus is the view from my cube. We moved into a nice new building (can it be three years ago now???) and there's a big, open space between me and the windows, so all I have to do is turn my chair and I have a view of the trees in the greenspace next to our building.

So I'm lucky, and daily grateful for it.

My challenge here was to photograph the windows in a space brightly lit by fluorescents, white walls, gray carpet and big windows with white blinds. Once again I turned to my favorite lens, a Canon 50mm f/1.8. Yes, it's plastic. And yes, it isn't as fast as an L series lens, but for me the results are more than worth the $85 I paid for it.